Training provider launches University of Leeds degree route

Early years students can gain fast track entry into a Russell Group university degree through early years training provider PBD.

PBD’s training director Janet Dawson

PBD has teamed up with the University of Leeds to provide a route on to the second year of the university’s part-time honours degree programmes in Child and Family Studies or Learning and Teaching.

The Child and Family Studies degree brings together professional practice, work-based research, policy and theory about child and family welfare, while the latter is aimed at training managers to question education policies and make an informed contribution to their organisation.

The courses are run by the university’s Lifelong Learning Centre, which is aimed at mature students and offers the courses part-time one afternoon a week over five years. The move would mean that students skip the first year of the foundation degree and can either leave after taking the remaining two years (when they would gain a foundation degree) or complete four years of study to leave with a BA with honours.

It is also possible for non-PBD students with GCSE grades A*-C English and Maths and level 3 qualifications or equivalent to access the same starting point but they will have to go through a selection process.

This level 5 entry route will apply to early years students who have completed the City & Guilds Diploma in Early Years Leadership with PBD. This programme was designed in conjunction with Bournemouth University’s Dr Francisca Veale and has signed up more than 150 candidates.

The training provider, which was the first to offer the new City & Guilds Level 5 Diploma in Leadership when it was released in April, also launched a pathway into the foundation degree in Early Years Practice offered by University Campus Suffolk (UCS) based in Ipswich.

Janet Dawson, PBD’s training director, said: ‘This prestigious collaboration further strengthens the route from level 2 through to Early Years Teacher Status. We have several students close to completing their diplomas who have already expressed a wish to move on to the Leeds degree programme.’

Ms Dawson added that negotiations about agreements with several other universities are ‘at an advanced stage’.

More information about the Level 5 Diploma, and the new collaboration between PBD and Leeds University, can be found at www.pbdevelopment.co.uk or by calling PBD at 01440 731731. For more information about the Leeds degree programmes, visit www.llc.leeds.ac.uk.